"Please Prepare for Hurricane Iselle"

We got an email early last week telling us about the hurricane and tropical storm heading our way. It warned us about the storm and its path and included a list of things we should do to prepare. We went out and got more water and took stock of our food supplies, but we weren't too worried about it. Iselle was predicted to hit us about Friday. Allan stopped at the commissary on maybe Wednesday-ish and the entire water isle was cleared out. People were getting pretty serious about this water hoarding business... He walked out with his one item while everyone else was juggling multiple bottles and crates and gallons of waters. But we still weren't worried.
Friday rolls around and Allan doesn't have to work, cause there's a hurricane coming to get us and everyone has been advised to stay safely in their homes. So the base is a ghost town. I looked out the windows and didn't see a single person. Yeah, it was windy, and we had a few pretty heavy ten minute on& off rain showers, but by noon it was actually looking like a really nice day.
Allan's friend Tolliver texted and asked if we wanted to go for a drive and check out the waves. Of course we jumped at that offer cause we were already tired of sitting at home. We drove up to the north shore and stopped at a few of the beaches to see how things were looking. And I was a little unimpressed. I was expecting huge crashing, storm-worthy waves. But they just seemed pretty average to me. Maybe they were a little bigger than normal, cause everyone seemed really excited to jump in and go surfing (much to the police officers' annoyance as they were trying to get and keep everyone out of the water).

you can't see them very well, cause they're tiny, but the microscopic dots about mid-left side are people surfing 

tiny surfer dots on the far right side

the biggest wave I caught on camera

We hopped back in the truck and kept on driving, ate lunch at Fumi's shrimp shack in Kahuku (yes, I, Hailey, actually ate shrimp. and enjoyed it too...) I guess this Fumi guy owns the shrimp farms surrounding the shack, so they serve the freshest of fresh shrimps.

Next Tolliver wanted to show us the beach where they filmed the Catching Fire arena beach scenes and I was pretty excited. "It's a liittle trail across across from a fruit stand...." By the time we saw the fruit stand we had missed our turn, and I guess the boys weren't as excited to see the beach as I was, cause we didn't turn around :(  -no worries though, I'll go back sometime so I can picture-brag about it.

We stopped for ice cream in Haleiwa- "the original surf town". It was a really cute place, the kind that looks so genuine it attracts all the tourists. But thankfully the threat of the hurricane was keeping everyone else at their hotels and we had it mostly to ourselves. Unfortunately I didn't even think about taking any pictures cause I'm the dumbest. We headed back home and Tolliver told me that now I'd seen the whole island "well, the best of it."

And that's how you spend a hurricane day in Hawaii. Ask any islander.